


Bloody Knuckles

by deepriverwoman



Series: Terriel [1]
Category: Karate Kid (Movies)
Genre: Internal Conflict, Internal Monologue, One-Sided Attraction, Possible One-Sided Attraction, Self-Reflection, Short One Shot, Terry sorta maybe kinda gets weird feelings and stuff, musings
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-04-01
Updated: 2019-04-01
Packaged: 2019-12-30 05:39:21
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,626
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18309290
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/deepriverwoman/pseuds/deepriverwoman
Summary: Too bad, Terry thought. Daniel LaRusso had great potential, and he was wasting it. In another circumstance, he would have made a fine Cobra, someone who rose above his weakness and became comfortable with himself, embraced his truer instincts.





	Bloody Knuckles

**Author's Note:**

> This might venture off into other connecting drabbles later on, and I am thinking about possible AUs maybe??? To note: There are no posted warnings that would be suitable for this, however this deals with an older man (villain) who is dealing with romantic feelings for someone who, in universe, is a minor. So if that squicks you out in any way please proceed with caution. No doubt you wanna read this if you're here, but I always like to be sure :p

On the first night Terry Silver met Daniel Larusso, he heard his voice. Daniel's humming melody, the tapping of his footfalls against the floor of his sensei's house.

 He went there looking for ammunition. Whatever he could find, whatever secrets or knowledge he could use as a weapon. It would have been so perfect, had it worked the way it was supposed to;  He didn't count on being humiliated, not like this.

 

Terry now sat at the table at a local bar, on the evening he was defeated. Daniel made Grand Champion. Twice. Against all his efforts, his machinations and his planning over weeks, Daniel still bested him.

 “Should have never let you talk me into this,” John Kreese had said, as they both padded out of the back door, so no one would notice them walking in complete shame. He remembered all those times, back in Viet Nam, when John Kreese was his commander, and he back then seemed so large, so resilient. This man who saved his life. This was a man who seemed, to Terry at least, untouchable.

 

Now it was different, so much different. John looked so broken; so deflated. Smaller than he remembered him, older too. It was just the same as when he first showed up at his doorstep, weeks ago, looking like a vagrant and ready to hand Terry back the keys to his legacy. Now after this defeat, Kreese went back to that place, went back to be the man who lost everything.

 

“Come on, Johnny,” Terry soothed. “There’s always a next time, you know? We’ll get him next time. Let's just go have drink, okay?  Why don't we."

 

“I’m going to a hotel," John Kreese said flatly, "and then I’m going to bed”.

 

Terry had given his friend some money to get by, until he could get back on his feet. Everything was riding on Cobra winning the tournament, therefore elevating their reputation again. Daniel would be the only one to suffer after it was over. But it didn’t happen, and John had said nothing else as he walked away from Terry, holding his head down, rubbing the back of his neck.  

 It wasn’t even that Kreese seemed angry with him, he just seemed so disappointed and somehow, that was much worse.

 Flashing back to that moment again and again, would do Terry no good. Drinking himself into a black coma might help, but then he would have no room to think, to work things out in his head. Instead, he let the half full glass of brandy linger and watched as the liquid swirled inside, he let his mind wander over past events, of how things could have ended differently.

 Thinking of those training sessions, it was all Terry could do not imagine himself kicking Daniel Larusso's knees in. 

 

So, he did, as his mind transported him back to just a few nights ago, in the dojo. He imagined kicking Daniel’s knees, watching him fall to the floor, and it brought him a small grin.  Daniel's grimace.  Daniel's yell of pain. The scenario brought with it others, and soon Terry zoned into that place, those training sessions, the feeling of anticipation before it all crumbled.

 

.... Blood, red and fresh. Daniel’s hands were trembling as he stared at the broken skin; Terry remembered it viscerally.  As Terry grabbed Daniel’s wrist, he commanded him to imagine the blood of his opponent, knowing that Daniel would hate even liking the thought at least at first.

 

Daniel’s hands had looked like they never took a beating.  Never saw calluses a day in their life. Soft and supple fingers, nimble, unrigid.  Daniel had had a little girlfriend who did pottery. Did he ever touch the clay himself?

 

Terry's hand had started gripping his glass tightly, and he shook his head to release from the thought. But it didn’t work.

 

Terry remembered that there had been a certain calmness to Daniel, a meekness. He asked himself when the last time was, he himself had ever seen it.  He could no longer remember being so young and unmolded. He watched as Daniel gathered up strength from deep inside, and the calmness slipped away. Still, there had been a sort of grace to his fury, as he broke the wooden arms and legs with his bare hands. Right then, Daniel didn’t give a shit about the pain, nor the splinters. He didn’t even feel it. Daniel imagined Barnes standing right in front of him, and he summoned all that delicious anger forth and channeled it into raw power.

 

It was all Terry could do right then and there to keep himself from focusing on the very second his own heart started beating a little harder. He had felt the thrill slowly rise inside and grow warm in his chest. He knew this must have been because he was one step closer to destroying Daniel LaRusso and knew the eventual depths, he could pull him to.  

 

Though one other thought, stayed in the back of his mind; there was somewhere else the excitement came from, somewhere pushed aside, but Terry couldn’t focus on it not even as Daniel looked at him and smiled with big eyes triumphant and glinting and beautiful.

 

Terry’s mind focused back to the present. He barely realized that he had still been staring into the glass of brandy and envisioned Daniel’s eyes, comparing its color.  Why was he thinking this way? Terry rested his forehead in one palm.

 

Maybe it wasn’t best to think of the past, so he could try and workout in his head how he could have planned this whole thing out better. But the edge of alcohol loosened the vice holding all his thoughts together, and they started swirling again, back in time and back to where Daniel stood next to him.

 

That night, at the club. When Daniel punched Terry’s hired man in the nose. He knocked him back so far with that fist, that he fell to the ground. Terry had to admit, he was surprised that the kid could throw such a punch. But there again was that glint; that grimace of rage all pent up and buried in his clenched jaw, marring his youthful face. His look of coming alive for a brief ( _too brief!_ ) moment before fear took over.

 

As Terry led Daniel out of the club, running into nighttime, he again felt a rush he hadn’t really felt in a long time.  He was close to it back in the dojo, but it had come back with a vengeance. His heart beat faster again as he felt Daniel’s energy, and allowed himself to bask in it. The fresh daring of a young man who had not seen the horrors this world has to offer.

 

 

“You did the right thing,” Terry had said to him. “You had no choice!” That was supposed to have been a lie, but only Daniel. Terry knew it as the truth.  He’d seen what a war did to people, and he knew what war did to him. It shaped the way he saw the world. No one will just walk away in a war. Your enemies don’t sing songs or make pottery with you. You never have a choice _not_ to destroy them, because they give you no choice. What molded Terry then became something akin to what could have molded Daniel; the revelation that he had the strength to cause damage and that he could be all the better a man for it.

 

No.  

 

Terry forced his mind back to the present, back to the bar and his table. He wasn’t drinking fast enough he thought.  Too many tangents were happening at once, too many thoughts of possible outcomes, not that it mattered now.  What was Daniel doing now? Celebrating no doubt. Laughing at Cobra Kai. Going back to a quaint little life, as if nothing changed. It was almost perfect, in a way. How much power he possessed, and how little he knew of it.

 

Now Terry understood, and maybe he smiled despite himself. Daniel left Cobra Kai into a pile of dust, because who lesser could have done the same? Where would all his fury go? When all he did was clean up after the old man; cut happy little bonsai trees while his gi sat in the closet, collecting dust. It would settle back down into the pits of his soul, where it would remain there, untapped unnurtured and never seen again.

  

Too bad, Terry thought. Daniel LaRusso had great potential, and he was wasting it. In another circumstance, he would have made a fine Cobra, someone who rose above his weakness and became comfortable with himself, embraced his truer instincts.

 

Terry was too broken, too damn tried to resist betraying himself with such a thought.  He didn’t care at this point. He wanted to sink into his bed, so that he could be back to his right mind after he woke up, and hopefully his dreams would not betray him too.

He’d call John in the morning, after things died down a bit. They had been through a lot together after all, and surely this was the least of it.

 

Or maybe it wasn’t. Maybe meeting Daniel LaRusso, was the worst thing that happened to either of them.

 

"How does it feel to be a loser?"

 

Terry looked up and saw a thin man in a holey blue shirt red baseball cap looking down at him smirking.  One stupid spectator who managed to find him.

 

"Huh?" the guy repeated. "How does it feel?"

 

Terry took one look at him and then finished his brandy, setting the glass down with a loud clap against the table. "I don't know," was his only reply.

 

 

**Author's Note:**

> Thanks for reading, hope ya liked it.


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